Forever Waiting
by CleverYoungThief
Summary: At the Gap of Rohan, Aragorn is lost and feared for dead. All the people of Rohan grieve. But there is still one who will not give up hope, and knew Aragorn when Hope was still his name...
1. Forever Waiting

Author's Note: My own take on Aragorn's fall at Helm's Deep. Movieverse, I suppose, since it never happened in the book, and I take liberty with Legolas's age. This is either a one-shot or a two-shot, depending on how many reviews I get. I haven't decided whether it's going to be any kind of A/L or not (and even if it was, it would probably be slight and mostly hints). Whoever reviews the most, pro-slash people or no-slash people, will probably get to decide. So put in your vote.  
  
Forever Waiting  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas could sense each of the other comrades of his fellowship in his mind. Each of them had a scent, a sense of power and energy, and sounds that were all their own. The hobbits always smelled to him of clean dirt and sunlight, fresh growing things, and their energy was always close to the ground and deeply connected to the ground they walked upon. Their steps were soft, rabbit-like, and so was their breathing. He had missed the sounds and scent of their passing in the Rohan, but it did his heart good to know that the little ones, Merry and Pippen, were safe.   
  
The other mortals always carried a heavier, more solemn sense of power, one that reminded him of destructive things, swinging swords and sieges. To him, Gimli smelled like cold stone, mossy with age, and the musty parts of the deep places of the world, places without sunlight. It wasn't a bad smell to him, but not particularly one that left him fond memories, either. It was a smell that reminded him of Moria. Boromir had always smelled strongly of bonfires and smoke, and the scent had even lingered with him after death. Aragorn would forever smell to Legolas like pine trees, freshly sharpened steel, and shade.   
  
He could not scent that now. Even with the new silence of the battlefield, he could not hear Aragorn's breathing, rusted with the smoking of many pipes, but as individual as a footprint in the mind of an elf, a creature of the senses.   
  
His voice took on a more panicked edge. "Aragorn! Speak, if you are whole or wounded! Aragorn!"  
  
The elf sprinted to the place where he had last saw Aragorn engaging the orcs. The chief of the Dunadain was no where to be seen. His smell was still a faint whisper here, but Aragorn was gone.   
  
There was a thick, choked laughing behind him. From a mortally wounded orc.   
  
"You're too late. He's fallen, fallen. He could not resist the strength of the beast. He dropped like a rock into the river. He's dead as dreams."  
  
Legolas whirled around to face the orc. Gimli had heard and come up to the orc, pressing an ax to an already torn throat.   
  
His eyes flashed as he stepped forward and kneeled next to the dying soldier. "If you lie, I'll make you wish that you had been stillborn, you dark thing."  
  
"Too late. I'm going now. But I don't lie-the mortal is gone, dead...dead..." The orc stilled.   
  
Legolas glanced at Gimli, then ran to the edge of the cliff, looking over it. All he could see was roiling water and bloodied foam.   
  
"He lies, he lies, he lies..." Legolas whispered, searching the waves with his sharp, eagle eyes.   
  
~Immortal or mortal, creature of light or dark, not many things lie with their dying breath, Legolas son of Thranduil.~   
  
"Legolas!"   
  
The elf turned back. Gimli had taken something from the hand of the orc. It shone like a captured star.   
  
His heart sank. ~Please do not be what I think it is...~  
  
But he knew, even without going closer for another look. It was the Evenstar. Legolas also knew that living, Aragorn would not be parted from it by any means. His throat seemed to close up; it became hard to breathe. His head ached. He glanced back at the water, as if expecting Aragorn to appear from the waves like Amroth. He blinked his eyes fiercely, trying to keep them from blurring, not with tire, but with tears. He heard Gimli come up beside him.   
  
"Legolas..."  
  
Legolas glanced at him angrily, on the verge of tears. They glimmered in his eyes, but did not fall. An elf cried maybe a handful of times in the long ages of his life. This was threatening to be one of those times. And Legolas was yet young, for an elf.   
  
"I will find him. I will see him, in the water. And then I will fetch him, and you must get a brazier going to dry his clothes. He will be cold. You must give me a moment, Gimli!"  
  
Gimli trailed off, backing away. Theoden himself came up beside the elf, looking at him.   
  
"Legolas, come, help to gather our men. Leave the dead."  
  
The elf's head came up, blue eyes bright with unshed tears, as uncomprehending as a child. He cocked his head slightly, as if he did not understand what the king had said.   
  
The king of Rohan put his hand on the elf's shoulder, meaning to comfort, but Legolas could not help but pull away. He had allowed no mortal except those within the Fellowship touch him, and even then only select ones among their party.   
  
Gimli came up and had to reach up to touch Legolas's shoulder, where Theoden had been shaken away. He pulled down slightly, bringing the stricken elf down to hear him.   
  
"He's gone, Legolas. We must aid the wounded." Gimli's voice was a sad, resigned rumble.   
  
"Yes..." Legolas whispered, his face set into a grim expressionlessness. He gazed down where Gimli still held Aragorn's jewel. "Please give me the Evenstar. I will hold it...for Arwen."  
  
~I will hold it for when he returns.~  
  
Gimli heard the hesitation in Legolas voice, but accepted it. He handed the gem over to Legolas.   
  
Legolas folded his fingers over it, feeling the delicacy of it. It would take him no effort whatsoever to crush the fragile thing.   
  
He didn't. He slipped it around his own neck. It felt as cold as grief over his heart, cold as all the heartless, cruel eras he had ever known.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
"So this is where you were, master elf..."   
  
Legolas lifted his head slightly when Gimli spoke, though he had heard the approach of the dwarf for some time. He knew that Gimli had paused, hesitated, not knowing how to hail him.   
  
"Yes."  
  
Gimli stood next to him, not looking at the elf, but at the stars overhead.   
  
"Such a clear night, to behold such death," Legolas whispered, lowering his head.   
  
"Aye..." Gimli replied, not knowing what kind of comfort to give his most unlikely of comrades.   
  
Legolas sang, softly:  
  
**Elessar has gone to darkness  
he fought for freedom, and so he fell  
the Evenstar for him shines, it does not fade  
though for the grief of him, no words can tell.**  
  
There was a period of silence. Legolas broke it by laughing, a broken, choked sound, and Gimli could have sworn there was tears in his voice, though none showed on his face.   
  
"Not as good as Frodo or Aragorn himself could have done. Does not do him justice by far. I will have to get the halfling to give him a proper verse."  
  
"You could not save him, Legolas."  
  
The elf stood and whirled on him, a flaxen storm. "How are you to say what I could or could not have done, Gimli!?" He turned back out, looking over the plains of Rohan before returning his eyes to the river. "I cannot believe he has fallen," he added, in a softer voice.  
  
"I know, Legolas. But he has. And no amount of you staring into that water is going to make him rise from it. You're tired, you haven't had anything to eat since yesterday morning, you're bloodied from the battle. Come, I'll tend you," Gimli offered in a gruff rumble. He didn't want to show it, but he was worried about the fair-haired elf. He didn't care how old Legolas was, the elf still looked like a boy to him, and Gimli couldn't help but treat him that way.   
  
Legolas had been standing at the cliff where Aragorn fell ever since he had finished helping to see to the wounded, and he could not be dragged from it once he had returned there. His gazed down into the flowing waters, still stained slightly red by battle farther upstream, his eyes fierce and unblinking as a hawk.   
  
"You have to eat, Legolas. And look-you're bleeding. Don't be stubborn, you pointy-eared twit."  
  
The elf did not reply. Still he sat, gazing into those waters as if he could do it forever. Gimli hated that look on his face, on the face of any elf. That cold, sorrowful determination, as if he was prepared to wait for Aragorn to return for all the ages of the world, if that was what was required.  
  
"It's getting dark."   
  
"...I know."  
  
"It's getting cold."  
  
"I do not feel it."  
  
"Crazy elf. You're bleeding."  
  
"Let me be, Gimli, or wait in silence with me. Be silent and still, or go back to the courtyard, master dwarf. I am listening for news of Aragorn on the wind and the water, and both speak very softly."  
  
Gimli sighed. "You cannot wait forever."  
  
Legolas raised his eyes to the dwarf for a moment, a small, strange smile turning his mouth. "I can, if I must." He glanced back over the water, seemingly mesmerized by the turning foam and the ripples in the grasslands as the wind touched them. The long grass whispered in a thousand voices only he could seem to hear. He was so still and unblinking Gimli was sure for a moment that he had fallen asleep, eyes open as he dreamed his strange elvish dreams. But then Legolas reached up, rubbing his eyes for a moment in a curiously childlike gesture, and went back to his watching. Gimli could not bear to wait in silence like this. He did not think there was any reason to wait.   
  
"I'm going back, master elf. Come in soon. You'll be ill," Gimli said quietly, beginning to walk away.   
  
Legolas only laughed softly in return. He stood immobile at the cliff throughout the night, as still and immovable as a statue. There was no sense that Legolas had stopped moving; it was as if he had never moved, had always been there, standing there for the ages. No sense that he would ever move from the spot again. Only the wind blowing his hair slightly from moment to moment or the sparkle of the Evenstar around his neck as he breathed shallowly in and out could convince anyone who saw him that he wasn't some kind of beautiful gargoyle, watching over the tired, frightened people of Helm's Deep.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Review, and I might just bring Aragorn back. 


	2. Rohan's Grief

Author's Note - Thanks for all the great reviews, people, they were quick comin', too, so the update is also quick-coming! ^_^ I was so happy! I almost didn't post that fic at all. Anyway, now this has to be more than a two-shot, because I have to bring Aragorn back. But not in this chapter.   
  
Update: The masses have spoken, so the No Slash! people win out. Which doesn't really bother me all that much. I really like both ways equally. And it was originally written as a friendship fic, anyway, so it doesn't matter one way or the other. As with Eowyn and Legolas, well...you can jump to your own conclusions. *grin*  
  
Shameless Plugs - However, if you are into the slashier stuff, check out "Longing for Lorien" (still mostly Aragorn/Arwen, but has some intimate Legolas/Aragorn moments in there too that can be interpreted in a variety of different ways) and if you're adamantly non-slash, check out "Mortal of Imladris", which is a slightly AU Estel story centering out on how he and Arwen met, and what caused him to leave Rivendell to become a Ranger. It's promising to turn into a melodramatic romance, but I digress. As always, reviews are appreciated, no matter how brutal!  
  
Rohan's Grief  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
During the night, Legolas barely moved. Once, he closed his eyes and shook his head, bringing his hand up briefly to touch his forehead in a gesture of exhaustion, or deep distress. Sometime after the moon had risen, he heard quiet footsteps behind him. They were too fearless and confident to be those of any woman-most of the Rohan people were still very afraid of elves, doubtful at the least and frightened at the worst-but the footsteps were too light to be those of any man, either.   
  
"Eowyn," he said, his eyes not leaving the plains. The moonlight shone on the grasslands like snow rippling in the wind. A great white ocean, as far as the eye could see. The mountains were black against the sky, and very far away, only a ridge on the horizon. The little rivers were like ribbons of silver inlaid into the ethereal landscape. Legolas found himself wondering how a place so wild and beautiful could be found outside of an elvish realm.  
  
"Master Legolas....Master Gimli told me I'd find you up here." Her voice was slightly startled behind him; it was quiet, and solemn as a pallbearer's.   
  
"You have."  
  
"I brought you something to eat. And some things to tend that wound. Since you didn't seem inclined to come back, I came out to attend you."  
  
"I'm not hungry. The wound is nothing." His voice was flat, but full of images, dead fields under a bleak gray November sky, wilted blossoms, sadness as taut as a silver wire, as tightly drawn as a bowstring.   
  
"You aren't the only one who suffers, Legolas."   
  
Legolas turned his head at this, and found himself absently dismayed to see Eowyn gazing at him with tears in her eyes, tears of grief for Aragorn and the others who died at the Gap, which were expected, and tears of pity for him, which he did not want or need.   
  
Legolas suddenly realized something, looking at Eowyn. Her hair was undone, wisps of it sticking to the tears on her pale cheeks. He sensed the dawning, doomed love Eowyn had felt for Aragorn, and was sorry for it. Sorry that it could never be. Sorry that Aragorn had loved Arwen so much, and sorry that Arwen was fool enough to fall in love with him. His falling would cause grief to more people than he could count.   
  
Eowyn's voice was soft when she spoke again. "What are you going to tell the one who gave him that jewel you're wearing?"  
  
"...I do not know." Legolas, really, had never thought about it. He saw death every day, dead orcs, dead fell, dark things, dead Men whose names he did not know and did not want to know. Names were secret, full of power, and naming something gave you reason to grieve over it. He didn't know why this was different.   
  
Your brotherhood is supposed to be different, he thought. Boromir wasn't supposed to be killed because Legolas had touched him, talked to him, smiled at him, teased him, and the same went for Aragorn. They were inside the magic circle of the Fellowship, which meant that they were beyond hurt. Or at least were supposed to be. But he had began to realize something when Gandalf fell into the abyss, Gandalf, who had always seemed so ageless to him. He had truly realized when poor Boromir died hard, bleeding and coughing his life out onto fallen leaves off the banks of Amon Hen, Aragorn weeping unashamed over him, kissing the Gondorian's cold, pale brow, that what was supposed to be and what really was were two very different things.   
  
"Will you send word to her?"  
  
Legolas did not answer. He did not think he would be the one to tell Arwen. He knew that she would die of grief if she knew. He knew, and he felt almost as if he was dying himself. If he was forced to it, he would keep the Evenstar and tell her that Aragorn had disappeared in battle. Damned if he knew how he was going to say such a dishonorable, dispicable, cowardly lie and look her in the face. He knew deep in his heart he couldn't. She would read his eyes like a book.  
  
// He's *not* dead! //   
  
"No," he answered finally. "I won't. He isn't dead."  
  
"Legolas-"  
  
He looked up at her silently, saying all he needed to say with a glance. Eowyn was miserable, wanting so much to help, wanting to comfort him and to be comforted by him, but he had no comfort to give. All his will was bent on Aragorn's return. He had nothing left for a jilted princess. In his mind's eye, he saw Aragorn, tangled against the warg, skidding over the side of the cliff. Then the warg had been gone. And then Aragorn had been gone. Why hadn't he seen it? Why hadn't he seen that his dearest comrade was in peril?   
  
"He would not have wanted you to suffer, Legolas."  
  
Legolas looked back at her, shaking his head a little. "If he's dead, as you say, then what he wanted or did not want doesn't matter anymore, does it?" He sighed silently, turning back to gaze over the plains. "Don't you understand, Princess? If Aragorn, son of Arathorn, is dead, then hope is dead. And nothing remains to save your people but hope. If he does not return, none of us will live to see the new moon. So I must wait and watch."  
  
Eowyn was silent. She stood beside him, tears showed on her face in silver moonlit tracks. She stood beside him, uncomforted.   
  
After a few minutes, she spoke again, her eyes never leaving the bottomlands. "You were close to him?"  
  
"...I watched him grow up. I taught him what he knows." He stood still again, and Eowyn was unnerved by that utter stillness; it was like death. "And I will stand here," he said calmly, "until Aragorn returns."  
  
Eowyn was crying harder now, bringing a hand up to cover her face. Legolas was sorry for it, and looked over at her, observing her grief with a detachment that almost resembled cruelty. His own grief was too heavy to bear, without adding hers on top of it. She didn't just grieve for Aragorn; she cried for all of her people. Somewhere in his heart, Legolas knew he was not strong enough to shoulder such sorrow, his and hers. His heart would break with it.   
  
Legolas did not try to comfort her. He only let her lean on him, let her cling to him desperately, as if he was the last harbor in a terrible storm, and reached forward tentatively to brush the hair back from her face.   
  
"My lady," he said, trying finally to put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged them off in a quick, hard gesture suddenly, pulling away from him as if he had grown hot to the touch. She had no intention of listening to him. Her grief had given over to fury, and she was blazing with it.   
  
"Never mind, master elf," she said, her voice bitter with grief. Legolas could almost taste it, like tears. "You have no idea what I'm talking about. You have always been immortal, and he never was. You think just because he grew up with you, just because he belonged to you Elves, that death could never touch him. Well, you were wrong!"  
  
Legolas recoiled as if he had been slapped. And realized that there was a sting of truth to her words. It was true; Aragorn had been raised among the Elves. He had been Hope to them for so long, that Legolas assumed he could never be hurt. He was a star that could never burn out.   
  
She was not finished. She advanced on him like a storm, shoving him from the position he had stood at for many long hours. Dimly, Legolas understood that such daring wrath was much easier for her to express than anguish. She pounded on his chest, weeping and not knowing why. Her hands beat on his chest like the wings of little birds, almost unfelt, even though she put all her strength behind them. "Why don't you cry!? Why don't you cry for him, you callused thing! Why don't you sing your silly sad songs for all of them?! Why do you just stand there, like some pitiless breathing statue!?"  
  
Legolas let her strike him, not moving, only looking at her, barely feeling the blows. After a few seconds, he grabbed her wrists gently, being careful not to hurt her, and let her struggle, crying and cursing him, for a few moments more, before he let her go. Eowyn turned away from him, sobbing harshly.  
  
After awhile, her sobs quieted. She leaned down and pick up a rag she had brought, soaked with some sort of seeped herbal water that was supposed to help his wound heal. She turned back towards him, dabbed at his arm fiercely, causing him to wince. "Death is natural, Legolas. It happens to everyone," she added, her voice more quiet, hitched with the aftermath of her sobs, but her eyes were still furious, defying Legolas's calm refusal to accept the inevitable.   
  
"Stop it," Legolas replied, looking back over at the plains, ignoring her attempts to nurse him. "You're not making any sense, and only upsetting yourself."  
  
Eowyn didn't answer. She cleaned his wound wordlessly, tears drying on her cheeks, her expression a scowl of concentration and anger. Legolas could feel that she was embarrassed of her tears, though he didn't know why she would be.  
  
The moon was reflected in Legolas's eyes when he spoke again. He stared up at the stars, like far-off candles in the darkness; they always comforted him. "Men are on close terms with death. Before I saw Boromir the Tall die in Amon Hen, I had never really seen death, not in all my long centuries. Compared to you, I am a sheltered child. You have epidemics of sickness, great wars, mothers dying with child, children dying of fever and infection, old age and sickness and death. Always death, in the end. Your people die of things that would seem trivial to us, wounds we could heal without trouble. Of all people, Eowyn, with all the death you've seen, I would think that you would know the truth. Death is unnatural as the orcs and goblins. There's nothing natural about it. It is a dark thing of sorrow, and nothing good ever came of it."   
  
He was silent and wouldn't speak of the subject again. The little sack of bread and such she had brought for him sat unnoticed at his feet. When Eowyn finished tending his wound, she put a hand on his shoulder, opened her mouth to say something more to him, then closed it. On impulse, she reached up and gave him a brief kiss on the cheek, then walked back to Helm's Deep, and let him be.   
  
After she had been gone for almost an hour, and the moon was setting, Legolas raised his hand to his face, letting his fingers brush over where she had kissed him, like a blind child committing something to memory. Even though he knew her words were said in anger and grief, they had still hurt him. Callused? Pitiless? Unfeeling? It hurt him that anyone would think of him so.   
  
There was still a touch of warmth on his cheek, where she had kissed him.   
  
He felt things. He felt.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 


	3. Abandon, Twilight and Trust

Author's Note: Hmmmm, not much to say about this one. More Legolas-torture. Aragorn will be back...I'm not saying next chapter...okay, I am. Aragorn'll probably be back in the next chapter, unless I have something drastic to add.  
  
PS - Don't worry guys, no intention of a Legolas/Eowyn romance. I didn't really from the beginning, but I like to keep you guys on your toes. *grin*  
  
Abandon, Twilight and Trust  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas stood in mute stillness through the entirety of the next day, feeling the hot sun beat down on his shoulders and not feeling it. He did nothing but hear and see. He did not think, only felt with all the senses given to him. There were hours when only the plains talked to him, the wind moaning and the tall grass whispering into his ears. It was a loud place even in the silence, layers of voices and lives.  
  
At one point, he began to dream feverishly in the blistering heat. He knew he was dreaming, but knowing didn't make the dream any less terrible. Mirkwood was burned to the ground, all around him. He heard screams, terrible pealing screams, but could see nothing to make them. Anduril lay on the ground at his feet; it wasn't only broken, anymore. It was shattered like fine glass. He didn't know how he could recognize it as Anduril, but he knew in his soul that was what it was. He realized that Boromir was standing next to him. All around him, there was a cold white light, and awful crying. Boromir stood next to him, wearing the most sorrowful expression Legolas had ever seen. Blood was dried on his face in streaks. Arrows jutted out of him. Legolas would have been terrified, but knowing he was dreaming took his fear from him. He only felt a iced, empty grief.   
  
He woke from the dream about midday, jerking awake with a low cry. The sun was a hellish inferno, hotter than the forges of Barad-dur, beating down mercilessly. He felt a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he had to squint to see across the plains. Sweat trickled down his forehead, stinging his eyes. Still, he would not move. If all the elements rose against him, he would not abandon.   
  
Surely, he must come, Legolas thought, never leaving this place where Aragorn fell. He'll come, or I'll die of grief. It was bad enough with Boromir, but Aragorn... He shook his head slightly. He had always considered Aragorn an Elf, even though he knew better. He had never even entertained the thought that Aragorn could ever die. Would Estel fall just as Gondor had found its lost king? No fate could be so horribly cruel.  
  
By the time dusk came, making the fields look as if they were ablaze, Legolas knew Aragorn would not come. He would not admit it to himself, but he knew it. He, Legolas Greenleaf, would fall into shadow. If not this day, then the next one.   
  
It wasn't until dark evening of the second day that Legolas returned to Helm's Deep. He had stood out in the cold darkness and the hot sun for two days and a night before Gimli spied him from afar on the grasslands, and went out to meet him.   
  
The dwarf was appalled by the broken resignation in Legolas's face. He didn't think the elf would ever give up, but two days of nothing but staring into bloodied, swirling waters, waiting for a form he would never see, and two days of watching out across the plains, waiting for a single, wearied figure that would never arrive, had taken its toll on the Mirkwood prince. He had the beaten, hammered gaze in his eyes that Gimli had seen in Boromir's eyes, after he had fallen to the orcs.   
  
Legolas looked like a creature waiting to die. He staggered slightly, his face pale as if he was stricken with shock; he swayed even though he wasn't wounded in any way that Gimli saw, and the dark half-moons beneath the elf's eyes were terrible to see. Out on the cliff, he had looked tranquil and composed, prepared to wait out the ages for Aragorn. Now, it seemed all that strength had been stolen from him by the fiery sun, cold moon, and indifferent stars.  
  
"Legolas! You've come back!" Gimli called, forcing a surly kind of cheer into his voice. It sounded forced, too, but it was the best he could manage. Legolas looked up, his eyes meeting Gimli's for a second and looking through him before he dropped his gaze again. Legolas did not hail back. He simply kept walking, his steps dragging like a horse beaten into its last legs, head lowered. If elves could fall sick, Gimli would say that Legolas was ill. He thought that sick or no, Legolas was probably ill, although no herb or salve could cure this hurt.   
  
When the dwarf came up to Legolas and touched him casually on the shoulder, the elf jumped and stared down at him with crushed sufferance. Beneath his hand, Gimli could feel the elf's whole body quaking steadily, as if with the chills of fever.   
  
Gimli led him into the courtyard. At one point, Legolas-stripped of grace-tripped and stumbled to one knee, but instead of getting up, he only kneeled there, staring at the stones as if one position was just as good as another, completely disconnected from his surroundings, as if he was dreaming and awake. Citizens of Rohan walked around him, some glancing down at him nervously, others not daring to look at him at all. He did not move until Gimli pulled Legolas's arm around his stout shoulders and pulled the elf to his feet.   
  
"Legolas, what's wrong with you?" he said, half angry and half worried. The elf looked very young, and with the circles under his eyes and the glazed look in them, he also looked very...human.   
  
"When have you last slept, you immortal idiot?" Gimli murmured, helping Legolas along. "I was beginning to think maybe you turned back for home. Home to Mirkwood."   
  
Legolas looked down at his dwarf friend, too wretched to be exasperated by Gimli's help, but forcing a smile anyway. It felt stiff and unnatural on his face, more like a grimace than a smile. "I did not give up on the Rohan."   
  
// I did not give up hope. //  
  
"How are you?" Gimli asked, a quiet rumble. He clapped Legolas on the shoulder.  
  
"Not well." Legolas touched the side of his face again, rubbing his temple in that despairing, exhausted gesture. His face was terribly pale. "I did sleep a little, Gimli. But my dreams were filled with fire and shadow. I can hear the armies marching. The ground trembles. The grass cries under yrch feet. But no word of Aragorn comes."  
  
"Maybe, Legolas...we'll hear no more word of him," Gimli said hesitantly. "Perhaps he really is gone. I hate to think of it, but..."  
  
Legolas did not answer, or even acknowledge that he heard Gimli. He refused to agree. What if all it took was his lost faith to cause Aragorn's death? That one, simple acceptance of defeat? He knew in his mind that the idea was utterly idiotic, but in his heart...he wasn't willing to take the risk. Hope was the only thing that kept him going, and kept these people around him, these Men, going. Their courage hung by a thread. His own bravery was steadfast as the ages, but his faith was starting to falter.   
  
He walked off without answering, searching for darker places, longing to hide away from the light and prying eyes. These Men were not the same as the ones he was accustomed to seeing, not the stern, dark inhabitants of Gondor and Anor. These straw-haired fierce horsemen were too afraid to talk to him, too afraid to approach him, but not too afraid to talk *about* him, in whispers they forgot that he could hear anyway. He didn't even care enough to be insulted. He curled up in a dark corner and pulled his knees up to his chest.   
  
Legolas murmured himself a song in Elvish, a lullaby from his youth. It didn't comfort him, but it did help to make him sleepy, which was something it had never failed for him.   
  
"Pretty," said a voice behind him. He stopped and looked up, seeing a young girl standing there. She was dressed in a dirty shift, and her eyes were solemn. "A pretty song." She talked the Common Tongue as if she had a mouthful of oatmeal, as if she wasn't used to it. Legolas could hear the dialect of the Mark in her words.  
  
"Thank you," Legolas replied softly before turning back to look out the window.   
  
"You live forever, like they say?"  
  
Legolas was startled into a soft laugh. It was an unexpected question, and a welcome one. Anything to divert his attention from his own sorrows. "Yes."  
  
"They say that your horses are faster than wind, too. But if we only had an army of you, we could not be defeated," the girl said in awe, her voice breaking in delight.   
  
Legolas shook his head, still smiling gently. "We can fall in battle."  
  
"But you're brave. My father says you fight like a demon. What do you fear, Master Elf, that we cannot conquer together?" she said, making one mighty little hand into a defiant fist. She beamed a smile at him, and seemed to Legolas an embodiment of the ferocious spirit of her people.   
  
He smiled more broadly back at her, endeared by her innocence, not sure whether her father's remark about him had been meant as a compliment or not. He decided to take it as one. The little girl, at least seemed to think it was flattery.   
  
"Where is Sir Aragorn? Don't you ride beside him?"  
  
Legolas's pain came back on him with a paralyzing depth. He turned his face away, so the girl could not see the expression on his face. "I don't know," he answered, his voice strangely choked, when he could bring himself to speak again.   
  
The girl walked a few steps closer to him, close enough to touch his sleeve, patting it down in a strange soothing little motion. He couldn't see her face, but he could feel her watching him.   
  
"Don't worry," she said. "It'll be okay." She laughed again. "My big brother's a good fighter."  
  
Legolas swallowed back tears and looked over at her, smiling again with serious effort. "I'm sure he is. Finest warrior in Rohan." After a moment of careful consideration, he added, "A regular demon."  
  
The girl dissolved into musical giggles at this, small hands clapped over her mouth in an unconsciously childlike gesture.   
  
Legolas was glad for that beautiful sound, even as miserable as he was. It couldn't lift his spirits, but it kept them from sinking any deeper. He smiled again, faintly, as he turned back towards the hole in the stone wall that passed for a window.   
  
"Taryn...what are you doing there?" A new voice. Legolas turned back towards the little girl. An older boy came forward, putting his hands on her shoulders. He knew at once that this was the girl's brother. They had the same hair, the same face, even the same fierce poise. The little girl looked up at him.   
  
"Tamor...I was talking to him," she said, pointing over at Legolas with absolutely no reserve. He said nothing.   
  
The boy did. His quick, cunning pale green eyes glanced coldly at Legolas, then back at his sister. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, a fleeting gift of affection in an often brutal land that had no time for such things. "Well...leave him be. It's time for you to go to bed, anyway."  
  
"Come tuck me in-"  
  
"Later. Leave us be, Taryn. I mean it. I'll find Father, and we'll come do it together. If I catch you skulking about so late after I say to bed down, you'll be in a world of hurt." His voice was not merciless, but hardened by having to mother someone when he was young himself. It was lovingly stern, but Legolas could hear that the threat was not a bluff.  
  
Defiantly, she walked over to Legolas once more, still grabbing his sleeve in her little hand, as if she wanted to hug him and was afraid to do it.   
  
"Good night. Do not worry," she said, sounding completely nonchalant herself with a child's optimism and painful naiveté. "We'll send them back to the dark. My father says nobody has ever overthrown the Deep."  
  
"Taryn!"   
  
She pulled back from him, feet pattering on cold stones as she ran back towards the courtyard.   
  
The boy looked after her for a moment, then stared back at Legolas. Legolas stared back. Both of them regarded each other for a time that seemed to be an eternity. Legolas noted with vague amusement that the boy seemed to be sizing him up.  
  
"Where are the other Elves?" the boy said finally, voice soft and accusing. "Why don't they come and help us? If Saruman beats us, he'll burn the forests next. He's already destroyed Isengard."  
  
Legolas said nothing, thinking both exasperatedly "Who on Arda made me an ambassador for my people?" and about his duties as a prince. But what the boy said about burning the forests recalled his dream from the day before, and he shivered a little.   
  
"The men have said if we go against Saruman's armies, we're all going to die."   
  
Legolas brought his gaze back to the boy's, reluctantly. There was no fear in his voice, but the boy's emerald eyes were filled with it. In him, Legolas saw, it was akin to dim fury, and that made him think of Eowyn.   
  
"Are you afraid to die?" Legolas asked finally, not taking his eyes from the boy's.   
  
"No!" Tamor's voice was savage, bold. He shook his head violently, a lion's mane of dark golden hair. It was for that defiance in his own spirit, Legolas thought, that the boy probably did not punish his sister for her rebellion against him. "I will win when they come for us, and then I'll march against Sauron. We will not fall."  
  
"You are too young to fight."   
  
"And you are arrogant," the boy countered, smiling grimly. "Would you have someone take my place in the armor? Someone to die in my place? A woman, a child? Would you have my sister wield in my stead? I didn't think so. I am not too young to die...and I am willing to die for my people."  
  
Legolas looked back at him. He was amazed to be able to hear Eomer's voice in all of these untamed people.   
  
// I would cut off your head, beard and all, Master Dwarf, if it stood but a little further from the ground, // he thought, remembering Eomer's proud, disdainful words, and smiled back at the boy despite himself.   
  
"Have hope," Legolas replied, "and perhaps you will not have to make that sacrifice."  
  
"There is no hope in the Mark," Tamor answered, as if it was a known thing, like saying that rivers flowed downhill. There was a terrible assurance; in that voice, Legolas could hear a boy who had been forced to become a man far too quickly.   
  
"Do not say that!" Legolas said sharply, standing too quickly to be seen, his eyes flashing, and the boy backed away a step in surprise and fright.   
  
"You do not understand-" the boy started, but Legolas would not let him finish. He put his hands on the boy's shoulders, looking down into Tamor's green eyes furiously. Fearful, the boy's hand went for the dagger at his side in a lightning fast gesture that even Legolas had to appreciate. Whatever he was, the boy was no slouch.  
  
"Don't," Legolas said simply, without taking away his hands, even though he knew that the boy could still stab him. He just locked eyes with Tamor, and would not allow the boy to look away. "All I understand is that being resigned to your death will not help the people of Rohan. There is *always* hope."   
  
"I'm an archer of the Riddermark," Tamor replied icily, glaring at him. His posture was stiff and angry. "I'm not afraid of you."  
  
"Don't be. All I am asking is that you hear me. And there can be no courage if you are not afraid."  
  
"I hear you, Elf. Now let me go."  
  
Legolas did as he asked. The boy backed further away from him, hand still on the hilt of his blade.   
  
"An archer, hmm?" Legolas asked, smiling faintly.   
  
"Yes."   
  
"I am an archer of Mirkwood. Perhaps we will fight side by side."  
  
Tamor bowed, despite his cold words before. "I would be honored." When he raised his gaze again, the boy's gaze was resolute and clear of anger. "Excuse me, Master Elf. I must go see to my sister. She won't sleep well unless I do."   
  
As the boy started to walk away, Legolas called to him. "Tamor!"  
  
The boy turned back, eyes meeting his.   
  
"Do you love your sister?" Legolas asked. He wasn't think of Eowyn, now. He was thinking of Arwen. Arwen, who had always been like a sister to him. And Aragorn, like his brother. This brought a fresh pang of sorrow that he did not want to feel. It kept hitting him, usually when he least expected it, like an arrow out of nowhere to plant itself in his chest. He did not want to feel it, but of course he did. He had to.  
  
Tamor scowled slightly. "Of course."  
  
"Then protect her. Do not lose faith."  
  
// Maybe I will learn to take my own advice, // Legolas added to himself, as the boy melted into the shadows.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 


	4. Mirage

Author's Note - Hmmmm...a little interlude with everybody's favorite Ranger, 'til I come up with some better ideas.  
  
Mirage ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aragorn awoke to the feel of something cool and wet nuzzling his face. If he had awoke to this sensation a few hours before, he would not have felt it. But as it was, he had been sluggishly regaining full, painful consciousness, like a diver swimming slowly to the surface of a deep, dark well.  
  
He was wet all over, his clothes heavy and sticking to him uncomfortably. He laid in the semi-gloom of a ravine, which the river ran through. It was hot, so hot, even in the water. The daylight was too bright. His head hurt him, like slivers of glass in his brain. His muscles were sore, a jumble of aches and pains that melded together into a low, feverish throb. The bright light made his eyes hurt, even through his eyelids. So hot....his shoulder felt afire.  
  
That wet nuzzling again. Aragorn moaned lowly, cracking his eyes open a little. Horse...horse muzzle?  
  
"Ai, Hasufel. The Rohan breed loyal steeds," Aragorn whispered, running his hand up the horse's jaw, stroking gently. Hasufel whinnied appreciatively, nuzzling Aragorn's scraped, bloodied hand. Moving his arm sent up a flare of brief pain in his shoulder, bringing that part's low, fiery whimpering to a scream, but it was worth it, to praise a horse who had picked his way into a dangerous gully to find him.  
  
At least the pain served to bring him further around. He felt that his legs were lying in the water, everything but his shoulders and up lying on the rocky sand of the riverbank.  
  
The first coherent returning thought Aragorn had was of Arwen. Arwen...the Evenstar. The Evenstar!  
  
He clapped his hand to his chest, feeling for the jewel of Imladris. It was not there. So far, this was the most alarming thing so far, more so than the fact that his shoulder felt as if it had been speared, and that he didn't know whether or not he had broken any bones in his fall, or even where in the world he was. The loss of the Evenstar suggested that there had been a terrible shift in fortune, and when that transition included lying broken on an unknown riverbank with the hot sun on your face, that change was not for the better.  
  
He felt himself absurdly close to tears for a second, and then he blinked them away with a Ranger's fierce severity. He had no time for foolish tears, and tears would not help him.  
  
Using Hasufel's free reins, he pulled himself to a sitting position, wincing. As if reading his mind, Hasufel moved in front of him, giving him a little shade. He realized with this little bit of comfort that he was starving, and he remembered his pouch at Hasufel's side.  
  
As soon as he thought he had enough strength to stand without falling, he made an attempt. He staggered slightly, leaning on his stallion's side for support, and reached into the pack. A skin full of water, some dried venison jerky, and a few bricks of lembas bread, fragrant and wrapped in the glossy green leaves of Lorien. Just the smell of the food made him feel ravenous. How long had he been unconscious?  
  
He sat back down, drank from the waterskin until he felt a little sick, and then attacked the rations. He reminded himself, with a Ranger's prudent inner scolding, that it wouldn't be bright to go eating half of his food, starving or not. He had no idea how far he was from Helm's Deep. He leaned up against a rock and ate jerky so heavily salted his mouth stung with it, then munched the lembas thoughtfully, feeling stronger as he went along. When Hasufel nudged insistently at his face, he brought off a piece of the elvish waybread and fed it to the horse, stroking his velvet-soft nose.  
  
He could see himself packing the lembas bread, a gift from Lorien, back when they had been in the elvish paradise. He could see the sunlight, warm and comforting (not feverishly hot), filtering through the trees, the mottled shadows created by the canopy. He could feel the cool breeze on his face, coming off the river Anduin. He could hear Galadriel's singing, sweet and smooth like clear honey. This memory was almost visionlike in its clarity, and it brought a terrible pang of homesickness.  
  
// Count your bloody blessings, Longshanks, // Aragorn thought to himself, sticking another piece of lembas in his mouth and taking a swallow of water. // You have food, water, and a faithful mount that knows his way home. You could be far worse off. // He tried to tell himself that he ought to be thankful for those things, but even Aragorn found it hard to be all very thankful when you were sitting in the hot sun in the middle of nowhere, cut and scraped and bruised and bloodied, and had lost your dearest treasure.  
  
Remembering the Evenstar-and Arwen-brought a lump to his throat. He found himself having a thought not all very much different from the thoughts Bilbo had had on his adventures so many years before; he suddenly wished to be back in Rivendell, relaxing in front of a roaring fire, with elvish song in his ears, and the ravishing sight of Undomiel in his eyes.  
  
When he roused himself, his homesickness was not so intense. He knew that Gimli and Legolas would have missed him by now, no matter how many hours- could it possibly be days, how long *had* he been lost?-he had been gone. They'd have called out for him, traced his steps, maybe found where he had dropped the Evenstar. Legolas, especially, Aragorn knew, would be worried for him. The thought of frightening either Legolas or Gimli made Aragorn feel a twinge of deep guilt.  
  
Letting out a soft grunt of pain, he pulled himself to his feet again. Hasufel stood patiently, waiting for him. He felt as if his wounds were festering under the hot sun. The air around him shimmered with the heat like a mirage in itself.  
  
With a terrible heaviness in his limbs, he resecured the saddlebags and dragged himself onto Hasufel's back. He held on only tight enough to keep himself from slipping off; Hasufel, while not as light and restive as an elvish horse, was broadbacked and diligent, and would not let him fall. He waited until Aragorn was settled, arms lying on either side of the horse's wide neck, before he began to make his way back up to the top of the gully.  
  
Aragorn slept, or fainted again for a few moments, resting his cheek against the soft hair of Hasufel's mane, his arms wrapped around the horse's neck even as he leaned forward and closed his eyes, lulled by the swinging rhythm of Hasufel's long, gentle stride.  
  
The horse picked his way delicately back up out of the ravine, and Aragorn could feel the heat of the sun intensify as they reached the grasslands again, standing at the ridge, a little more than a half-hour later.  
  
"Noro lim, Hasufel. Noro lim..." Aragorn whispered, then let out a croaking laugh as he remembered; Hasufel was not a steed of the Eldar, and wouldn't know the words.  
  
Nevertheless, Hasufel seemed almost to read his mind. He gathered himself, his stride lengthening and lengthening until the stallion was in a full gallop. Aragorn tightened his arms, but he had no need for it. The horse's gait was smooth as silk.  
  
Aragorn let himself drift, barely feeling the pace of the steed beneath him, turning his mind into the dark, comforting pool of half-consciousness.  
  
~~~~~~~~ Anyone got any good ideas for Legolas, drop me an email, or leave somethin' in a review. I'm more than willing to draw out his angsty torture, but right now I'm runnin' on empty. Also, I may extend this fic beyond where Aragorn returns and into the battle of Helm's Deep (I got some ideas about the two kids, and I've been dying to address the death of Haldir). 


	5. Premonition

Author's Note: Well...it's really late, and I've been working for the last eight hours. Too tired to comment on this. Hope it's not too incoherent. That's all I got to say. Oh yeah, I took some liberty with the elves, but nothing that doesn't already fit them. This is Legolas's last angst-ridden chapter (at least on Aragorn's behalf; I haven't even started in on Haldir yet). Next chapter should be at least a little light-hearted. But enjoy this one first, you shmucks. ^_- By the way, Newmoon, that pun was *not* intentional, and I didn't even see it until you pointed it out. *laughs wildly and falls asleep over the keyboard*  
  
Update - Thanks, Ola, for pointing out the grammar error. My comp didn't catch it in spellcheck, and like I said...I was a little incoherent. All fixed now. ^_^  
  
Premonition  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Gimli awoke in the darkness just before dawn, his mind groggy with sleep. All around him was stone and rock, things of comfort and security. He had awakened before anyone else in the Deep, it seemed, save the king's men who were guarding it.   
  
Nearby, he heard soft muttering, nonsense words. It was a light voice, deep and murmuring. Legolas. He knew it was; after weeks of traveling with Legolas, he could recognize the elf's voice even when he couldn't understand him.   
  
Lying under the window, Gimli saw the elf in profile, fine, clear moonlight pouring over his body. The elf's eyes were wide and blank in that disconcerting disconnected sleeping gaze that had made Gimli unquiet for many days after he had met him, and even now, it gave him a chill. There was nothing in those blue eyes but reflected light. They were absence, they were goneness, they were the space between stars. This wasn't any different from before, but somehow this night, it seemed to disturb him more violently than before. There was no sign of the elf that had saved his life by dragging him up by the beard in Moria. Legolas was running with the night.   
  
Looking at Legolas, slim pale feline muscles, face slack in sleep, lips barely moving with guttural, rapid singsong, the smooth soles of his bare feet, his slender, narrow hands-twitching like a cat's paws in a dream-Gimli was reminded of Galadriel, and his heart filled with longing and sadness. Legolas shifted in his sleep, turning his face to the moon, letting out breath in a sigh of words, and Gimli let out his breath as well, unaware that he had been holding it.  
  
// He's beautiful, like she is, // Gimli thought, aware even more now than before how wrong he and his people had been about the elves. // Everything that is beautiful, or ever was, is in them. Their kind. But everything that is sorrow is in them too. They carry all the woes of the world. //  
  
But as much as he wanted to, Gimli had no idea of how to comfort his friend. He had learned much of elvish grief since Aragorn's fall, and even more about himself.   
  
Turning over to spare himself such a beautiful and sorrowful sight, the dwarf lay for a long time, just thinking. It was something he didn't do very often; as a hard, fast rule, dwarves acted first and thought later. The first emotion he had felt about Aragorn's passing had not been grief but fury. Burning rage that had demanded to be vented into violence. He had thought about the battle over and over, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. There was nothing he could have done, he decided, with a dwarf's grim practicality. Nothing could have been done to avoid it. But Aragorn was dead, and for what?! He wanted to get those damned orcs for that! He remembered how it had felt to sling his ax in that battle, how he had gone around finishing off wounded orcs lying on the battlefield, the feel of sinking his axblade into their dirty, stinking flesh. That had felt good! It had been good, to end their dark, barbarous lives. He had felt no mercy.   
  
But Gimli was logical, mercilessly realistic. It had been two days and two nights, and Aragorn had not returned. He was gone. So he was dead, then, and nothing could bring him back. So that was that. He died in an endless plain, far from his home or even his own country. He died fighting giant wolfish beasts, and his last sight might very well have been one of their terrible mouths, yellowed razor fangs and carrion breath. He died like that, and Gimli couldn't help but want something more than a few words of sympathy, a few words of praise, a verse of song. He couldn't help wishing that if Aragorn had had to die, he could have died fighting Sauron himself, like the father of Isildur.   
  
// I'll make his death worth something, // Gimli thought, half-dozing. // I'll make those orcs wish they had never ventured from their rotten caverns. Really kick those ugly curs in the balls, make them wish they had never heard of a dwarf. //  
  
He felt asleep with a smile on his face as if he awaited the chance with pleasure, dozed off with that last thought of vengeance.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas's dreams were of the ocean.   
  
He had never seen the sea that lay between the lands he knew and the Grey Havens. But every elf was drawn to those deep, dark waters, like lemmings to the cliff. He longed for gullsong and the waves, like the planet's undying heartbeat, as immortal as his own.   
  
He could hear the song of his people in his ears, a song that didn't make sense to him, and did make sense. It was not any song of mourning, or of lost valor. It was a song of triumph, and a song of going on. It was enough to make his heart leap with the clear, silvery joy only an elf can feel. He knew it was a dream, and didn't care if it went on forever; he could not remember being so peaceful.   
  
He felt the presence of Aragorn behind him, and he turned around. The Ranger stood on the damp sand, staring out across the stormy waters. Anduril was in his hand, and an army of ghosts stood behind him.   
  
// Aragorn! //  
  
The sea grew more violent. Winds shook the beach.   
  
// Aragorn! Run! //   
  
The world tilted wildly. Legolas tried to go towards Aragorn, but it seemed he didn't have control of this dream, whether he knew he was dreaming or not; his feet would not move.   
  
Aragorn lifted Anduril to the sky, and it glowed as if lit with its own inner light. The sky split with fierce lightning above them, like great river rocks slammed together. The phantom warriors stood behind him unmoving, as Aragorn was swallowed by the churning sea, until Anduril shone beneath the waters like a trapped star.   
  
// Aragorn!! //  
  
::he is coming::  
  
Legolas jerked awake in the darkness, rapid breath dry and rasping in his throat. His heart was hammering in his chest, and he was disoriented. His dream, muddled and frightening as it was, was already lost to him. There was no smells of leaves or bark or fresh wind in this gloomy place, only fire and stone. He was lying on stone, cold stone. He hated it; it felt as if he was in a tomb.   
  
He sat up, glancing around, swallowing back panic, and forced himself to realize where he was. Torchlight, stone, moonlight shafting in through the hole in the stone wall that served as a window, warm dreaming forms all around him, the soft steady pounding of sleeping mortal hearts. Gimli snored loudly near him, and as soon as Legolas's eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see Gimli sleeping flat on his back, ax cradled over his chest.   
  
// You're safe! You're safe! Window, stone, torch. Rohan! Rohan! It's only Rohan! //   
  
Suddenly, without really understanding what he was doing, Legolas stood up and picked his way gently through sleeping humans, past Gimli's snoring form, and out into the courtyard. Past that, he was drawn into the sheer unlit darkness of the grasslands. Only the stars and moon lit the night, and dimly. He walked out into a fog that was thick and white to the backs of his knees. It was like walking through a ghostly drift of snow (which was something Legolas had never experienced in his life to begin with, being too light to sink into snow).   
  
He looked up and saw a billion stars overhead, cold pinpoints of light in the darkness. He had always loved the stars, had been comforted them before. But now, alone in the dark, they made him feel small, meaningless, unable to change the course of anything.   
  
He crossed his legs in front of him, opening his mind, letting it fly. He listened as he had before, listened to all the sounds of the night. Hoofbeats on the earth...water flowing....wind sighing. He could hear the armies marching still, if he listened close, but they were still very far.   
  
Legolas sank into the night, sweeping high on the wind as he allowed his free consciousness to touch a passing hawk's. Part of his consciousness stayed with his body, which had slipped back into wide-eyed sleep. He experienced the night through his senses, through the hawk's senses, through the senses of a dozen other creatures. It was a gift among the Eldar.  
  
He didn't know why he had gone there, out into the darkness alone. He had been called. Gimli didn't know it, but his thoughts of Legolas "running with the night" were more true than he would have ever understood. The elf thought about thirst; felt thirst, terrible thirst, even though he was not physically thirsty. It was like a memory of agony, there and gone again. He cried out for the need of it, and didn't know why. And heat, he felt terrible heat even though the night was cool, almost cold. He smelled the warm, dry, soothing scent of a horse's pelt, felt it like velvet beneath his clenched fingers. He didn't know what either of these things meant. They were like an amputated limb that cried out it was still there in phantom pain.   
  
When he came back to himself, minutes later, though it had felt like hours, the sensations were gone. He felt only a vague chill, and exhaustion, a weary submission. Even his deep, stabbing grief had left him. It retreated to a dull suffering in his heart, an ache for Boromir, and an ache for Aragorn. That was all. He did not have the strength left for anything else.   
  
He knew, dimly, that he should return to the Deep. That if Gimli awoke, Gimli would worry for him. Legolas cared for Gimli, didn't want to worry him. He knew that the grief of Aragorn's fall-he still refused to think of it as death-had struck Gimli as hard as it had struck him, although in a different way that Legolas couldn't understand any more than Gimli could understand *his* sorrow. Mortals healed of such grief, he knew. They had to put it behind them. They did not have the luxury of all the ages to mourn. But just as the sadness of Boromir's passing had never truly left him, neither would Aragorn's. He resigned himself to it like a wound he knew would never heal.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, that's enough bellyaching. Time to bring Elessar back in the next chapter. 


	6. Third Day Miracle

Author's Note: Errr, second to last chapter to the fic. It was going to be the last one, but I need something else at the end, and it needed another chapter added to this one. So I'll write that...yeah.... Anyway, don't worry about the ending to this one, it's not the end, and there's a reason for everything. ^_^  
  
PS - Sorry about the little grammar errors I didn't catch the first time. I put this chapter out as soon as I could, so I kinda hurried through my editing.  
  
Third Day Miracle  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas sat out in the long grass, looking over the plains until the sun began to peak over the distant mountains. The whole world seemed to shudder with the dawn. The dawn, as it had come and gone for all the ages of the world, and always would. It reminded him of his immortality, and knowing that he would forever be around to see the birth of the day did not bring him peace, not serenity, but a welcome numbness. It was time to move on.   
  
He took a deep breath and stood, shading his eyes as he stared off into the horizon, then turned his back to it, walking slowly back to the Deep, watching only his feet as he did. He mentally shielded himself for battle, maybe one of the biggest battles he would ever fight in. He had an obligation to the dead...and more importantly, an obligation to the living. He had a responsibility to overcome.  
  
The Deep was teeming with activity by the time he got back. The day of the Rohan started with the cockcrow; there were horses to groom, weapons to tend, armor to repair. The guards changed shifts in a chaotic shuffle that Legolas found himself more and more endeared to every day.   
  
As he walked into the Hornburg, he looked around at these bustling, busy people, too distracted to be sorrowful, too fraught to be afraid. They yelled and beckoned at each other. Some spoke the Common Tongue, others a dialect of the Riddermark. Even with the threat of death hanging over their heads like a dark cloud, they laughed, they argued, they loved, they lived hard. They lived as if they could capture every moment without worrying about the next. They recorded no history but in song or story. They were the most mortal of all the Men Legolas had ever known. They lived day by day.   
  
Legolas found himself in love with these people, with their country. He wanted to protect them, for all their stubborn pride and flaws and doubt. He loved them anyway, with a passion that frightened him in its ferocity. He would not let Saruman have them, or their land. Not if he had a word in it.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Under the fierce noon sun, when the Deep had subsided into drowsy quiet, one of the guards from the top of the parapet suddenly spotted a lone figure out near the horizon. It was a horse and rider, but the rider was not riding the horse. The rider was clinging to the horse in exhaustion, and moved so slowly that at first the guard thought it was only a mirage, brought on by his own fatigue and the heat of the day. Then, as the figure moved closer, the guard thought it was just another refugee from Osgiliath. When the figure came close enough to be seen as more than a dark shadow on the plain, the guard saw it for what it truly was.   
  
He leaned over the far wall, looking down into the Hornburg until he spotted the very person he was looking for. A stout dwarf stood in the courtyard of the Deep, arguing fervently with men of the Rohan over the necessity of horses in battle.   
  
"Gimli! Gimli son of Gloin! Master Dwarf, for your father's sake, come up here and look at this! You'll never believe it if not with your own eyes!"   
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aragorn rode into the courtyard, aware of the many pairs of disbelieving eyes on him, and sat up straight in the saddle, his poise proud and tired, like a sword that has had its runes of valor worn away by years of battle, but has yet to lose the bite of its blade.   
  
All people of Rohan stood around him, silent and wide-eyed, as if waiting with bated breath for him to speak, maybe some terrible prophecy before he collapsed in exhaustion. Aragorn was pallid and hollow-eyed with weariness, face rough with stubble.   
  
He finally did, looking around at the people as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in him turning up after being mourned for dead for three days.   
  
"I need someone to tend my horse."  
  
The courtyard roared into commotion, cheers, and approving laughter.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Gimli could barely speak as the king of Gondor pulled Hasufel to a stop in front of him. When he did, it was a sputtering, hearty laugh. "Aragorn, you imprudent human, you favored fool, you are indubitably the luckiest Man I have ever met!!" He looked around at the men surrounding them, his dark eyes glinting with happiness and pride. "Look at him! Luckiest man to walk this side of the Anduin, mark my words, men of Rohan! This is a true king! No death by warg, orc, or goblin can slay Aragorn son of Arathorn! He'd live just to spite them!"  
  
Aragorn dismounted wearily, having to lean on Hasufel to keep his balance. He smiled at Gimli; it hurt his face. "I wouldn't go quite that far. Fool, eh? I will consider it a compliment, coming from Gimli son of Gloin."  
  
"Are you hungry, son of Gondor? Tired from your long tramp in the countryside?"   
  
Aragorn groaned playfully in response, and they both laughed aloud. It hurt him to laugh, too; he felt like a patchwork quilt of bruises and cuts, but he was live enough to chuckle, and that meant he couldn't be too badly off.   
  
Gimli felt a silly lift in his spirits, as if he had been filled with air. Surely it would be over soon, now that Aragorn-scruffy king of the Numenoreans-had come back to them, whole enough to jest. And perhaps they had passed the worst, then. All the luck had been against the Rohan, but sooner or later, Gimli knew, even the worst luck changes.  
  
Aragorn seemed his old self. Too pale, badly used, face cut from his tumble down the rocks, hands bloodied, terribly tired, but still indubitably the old Strider, with his dry sense of humor, pragmatism and tenacious sense of duty. Gimli clapped Aragorn on the shoulder companionably, and his eyes widened slightly when Aragorn pulled away, inhaling in a soft hiss of pain.   
  
"Ooh, sorry lad. Bit sore?"  
  
"Slightly," Aragorn replied in a wry tone, his voice in a husky croak. He started to walk to the Hornburg, but waves of dizziness stole over him. Gimli was too short to give him a shoulder, but someone-the guard from the parapet-helped him to keep his feet.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When Aragorn entered the cool shade of the Hornburg-now under his own power-he found Legolas talking with a soldier of the Riddermark, their voices cool and serious. When the soldier froze, looking over the elf's shoulder in wonder, Legolas trailed off, not turning around.   
  
"Legolas!"   
  
Legolas turned around, his face going pale. His mouth dropped open in a soft expression of complete and utter shock that Aragorn-in all his years among the Eldar-had never seen on one of their faces.   
  
It was Aragorn, Legolas thought, staring back at him, utterly bewildered, unable to even begin to try and speak. But it couldn't be Aragorn. It was a mirage. It was nothing but a delusion...but the soldier he had been speaking to-Tandir, father of Tamor and Taryn, to be exact-had seen Aragorn first. So...he had to be real...didn't he? Legolas stepped back a pace, rubbed his eyes, and he was still there.   
  
"Legolas?"  
  
The elf stared back at him, eyes wide, as if he was looking at a ghost.   
  
"Legolas, I'm sorry," Aragorn said, reaching forward to touch the elf on the shoulder, but Legolas backed away again slightly, as if afraid of him. Aragorn's voice was hoarse when he spoke again. "I'm so sorry."  
  
There was a period of silence that was like an age. Legolas just kept looking at Aragorn with that exasperating blankness, as if he couldn't recognize him.   
  
"Legolas, are you okay?"  
  
Legolas could not answer. Gimli watched this strange scene, wanting to say something to Legolas, to snap him out of it, but he did not quite dare. The elf could not answer Aragorn. He only stood there, unable to accept what he was seeing, unable to answer. He wanted to cry in relief, but no tears came.   
  
Aragorn's expression became almost pleading. "Please, Legolas...say something."  
  
Legolas wasn't able to accept that Aragorn was alive. He had spent two days and nights in torture, feeling as if his own hidden grief was clawing him to death from the inside out, trying to force himself to accept the fact that Aragorn was dead. As an elf, death was something he understood to a degree, but found difficult to swallow, like bitter medicine. And now that he had finally succeeded, he found that Aragorn was not dead, Aragorn stood in front of him.   
  
He shook two words from himself, with effort. "You died."   
  
This was something he could not comprehend. Death he could understand; resurrection he could not. Gandalf had fallen, and Gandalf had returned. This he could accept, because Gandalf was not human. Mortal in form...manlike..but not human, not really mortal. Aragorn was human. Aragorn was mortal.  
  
// Mortal...mortal...mortally wounded....Aragorn? Aragorn?? //  
  
"No, Legolas. Not dead. He's standing in front of you," Gimli added in a quiet growl, trying to wipe that painfully bewildered expression from the elf's face, and the distressed one from Aragorn's. His own happiness at Aragorn's return was dampened by the fact that it had not helped Legolas.  
  
Aragorn reached out and grabbed Legolas's hand, his eyes serious, never leaving the elf's face. Legolas was shocked; not by the action itself, but by the fact that Aragorn's hand was warm, almost hot. Warmth was life. He had expected Aragorn's hand to have the clammy chill of a corpse. The Ranger took the elf's hand and gently put it to his own face, running pale fingers over three day's worth of stubble. Then he moved Legolas's hand to his chest, to feel the heartbeat beneath it, leading it like a blind child's. He moved Legolas's hand to his shoulder, putting it to the wound there. He could feel the elf's fingers trembling in his, cool against his feverish flesh.  
  
When he let go of the elf's hand and when Legolas pulled it back, it came away stained with red.   
  
"Dead things don't bleed, Legolas. Mellon-nin, let it go. Just let it go."   
  
Aragorn was suddenly old, and infinitely exhausted. He reached out and steadied himself against Legolas's shoulder, watching realization sweep the elf's face, followed by joy and awe as powerful as a cyclone.   
  
The elf began to laugh, laughter a clear, strong, fair ringing bell against the stones. All the anguish and anxiety from the last few days seemed lifted from him in one powerful moment, making him feel more effortlessly glad and joyous than a bird that has been freed after long days of being caged in darkness.  
  
"Not dead! Just late! Aragorn, you look terrible! Terrible!" He could barely talk around his delighted laughter.  
  
Aragorn smiled back wearily.   
  
Legolas spoke more with him of trivial things, every once in a while clapping Aragorn on his good shoulder. But Aragorn noticed there was still something wrong with him, it seemed. The elf appeared to be bursting with joy. At least he seemed to be. His laughter was continuous and almost hysterical. But there was something about his eyes that was too bright. His voice was strangely choked.   
  
He and Gimli led Aragorn to Eowyn, who summoned one of the healers. The healer made him lay down and drink water in small sips, cool from the well, while Eowyn held her wrist against his forehead before putting a wet cloth on it, murmuring about fever as she worked to undo his tunic to get at the dirty wounds beneath. The one at his shoulder was particularly deep.  
  
Gimli talked on and on to him in a happy muttering, growling grumble that was so thick with dwarvish accent in his merriment that Aragorn could barely understand him. He didn't try to anyway. His eyes and ears were on Legolas. Legolas of the unreadable elvish face and the trembling hands.   
  
"Legolas, are you really all right?" he asked finally, keen gray eyes searching the elf's face. He had no doubt that the initial joy on Legolas's face was true enough. But there was something else there, as well.   
  
"Fine, Estel, fine," Legolas whispered, smiling. It was a hard smile, almost a baring of teeth. "Just tired, that's all. Been up two days worried sick about you," he added, trying to make the words light-hearted.   
  
"I'm sorry, nin mellon. I did not mean to worry you," Aragorn replied solemnly.   
  
Legolas laughed. It was a bright sound, which had been cheerful before, and was now just...strange. Like a mask. He put his hand gently on Aragorn's shoulder. "I'm just glad *you're* all right, Estel. Look, you silly young fool, I understand that mortals are inherently clumsy, and I forgive you. But kindly don't go throwing yourself over any more cliffs to make a point of bravery, will you?"  
  
Aragorn laughed, but Legolas did not join him. Aragorn looked up to find that Legolas was absolutely serious. Of course. He had gone from rapturous to solemn in a space of five seconds.   
  
Suddenly, the elf reached under his shirt and undid the Evenstar from his neck, pressing it into Aragorn's feverish palm, folding the Ranger's fingers over it gently. He looked down into Aragorn's eyes.   
  
"I saved it for you," Legolas said, softly, blue eyes impenetrable as a sphinx. He seemed to be about to say something else to Aragorn, mouth opening to speak, then only turned and walked out of the room as quickly as he could, without looking as if he was fleeing.   
  
Gimli and Aragorn looked on at this desperate escape, eyes questioning.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Well....I was going to end this part of the fic in this chapter, but...I have at least one more to go. So much for a one or two shot, eh?  
  
Anyway, if you have any ideas or certain requests for the Helm's Deep sequel to this fic, by all means, leave them in a review. ^_^ I'll be starting it soon, probably only a day or so after I finish this one, maybe less. 


	7. Noon and Valor

Author's Note: Okay, last chapter for this fic. (Hope it's a good one.) I'll work on the Helm's Deep fic, post as often as I can, but I have a research paper due at the same time, so it may be slower coming. By the way, I had no idea what the name of the horse was that rescued Aragorn, since that part wasn't in the book, and I just assumed it was Hasufel. Call it artistic license. And for the people that were worried, this ain't an A/L in any form.  
  
Noon and Valor  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas fled.   
  
He walked away with the blind, invincible walk of someone overcome with grief or fury, hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. All the words he had meant to say had died in his throat, choking him. He berated himself mercilessly, his expression a desperate one, a mix of frustration and anger at himself.   
  
// You look terrible? You look *terrible*?! By the Valar, my everlasting foolish mouth! Could I not tell him that I feared for his life? That I could not accept his death, no matter what all others said? Could I not tell him I care about him, now that I get another chance? Could I not call him brother, just once? Ai, Elbereth, what in the hell is wrong with me?! //  
  
But Legolas knew. He knew that when he handed Aragorn the Evenstar, he could not say those things. He had seen the happiness in Aragorn's eyes when he gave it to him. He knew that to say those things he wanted to say in that moment would have taken away from Aragorn's happiness...would have been the worst, most despicable thievery of Arwen's affection...and so he had kept silent, when his heart cried for him to speak.   
  
// And it's better that way, isn't it? // he thought, blinking hard to ward off tears. // At least he's alive. Thank Gilthoniel for that. //  
  
// No, it's not better! You deserved that moment. You deserved to welcome him. You waited out for him in the cold and dark and terrible heat for two days and nights. You had a chance to tell him exactly what you felt, to lift away all that pain and fear, and you blew it off with a smart remark and a jest. You're a fool. //  
  
For that he had no argument. He only walked faster, plowing past the Rohan men instead of skirting around them. He could hear Gimli calling him back, but he wasn't listening. He didn't want to listen. He didn't hear the grunts of indignation as he pushed past people in his way.   
  
He thought of Boromir. Boromir, who had spoken too late. He had another chance, now, not like Boromir ever did...but he didn't know if he could take it. Boromir pledged loyalty to Aragorn, swore an oath of it on his dying breath. Legolas had tried to speak, to confess..  
  
// Confess what?! // his father's voice spoke in his head, harsh as a winter wind, causing him to wince in reflex. // Confess your loyalty? Your allegiance to a mortal? What would you do, prince of Mirkwood, third Heir, an immortal creature, wisest of all beings, going down on one knee, to kneel at the feet of this ragged wanderer? Legolas! Be the tender-hearted idealist, if you wish, but do not speak nonsense. All men are the same. All men are weak. Men are the reason the Ring still endures. And he's *no* different. //  
  
// He's my friend! Mine! Mortal, yes, but he belongs to the Eldar for as long as he lives! // Legolas thought fiercely, pushing unfeeling past one of the guards to the courtyard. // Aragorn is my brother. He's the king I'll never have the heart to be. I need to tell him that. I need him to know...and I'm afraid I won't have another chance to say it. I do not want to say it in my dying breath, like Boromir did. And I do not want to have to say it in his, when all hope will be lost. //   
  
He stopped running; he hadn't realized he had been running. He found himself standing out on the plains, and had no idea how he had ended up there. All the strength ran out of him, and his legs buckled. He tried to lock his throat against sobs and failed. He began to see in a wavery prism as tears overtook him, and he lowered his head.  
  
Legolas wept, all the lamentation he had suppressed since Aragorn's fall, a crumbled statue kneeling in the tall grass. He wept until it felt as if the tears would pull his insides apart. It was why elves didn't do it much. It hurt, it bloody hurt to cry. His tears came, burning and reluctant. It was more like bleeding from an infected wound. But he cried anyway, in grief and remorse and most of all in a desperate kind of relief.  
  
Aragorn was safe. Aragorn had come home.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   
  
Aragorn followed.   
  
Shaking off Eowyn and the healer's worried, anxious hands, he trailed Legolas, albeit a little more slowly. He was still unsteady on his feet, and every once in a while, the world would seem to tilt beneath his feet. He periodically stopped, letting the earth settle out again. But he went on, nevertheless, despite the protests. Gimli started to follow him, but he held the dwarf back with an upheld hand. A look at Gimli told the dwarf all he needed to know. This was business between Legolas and Aragorn. He needed to see the elf alone.   
  
Gimli understood. Eowyn understood. The healer was furious, and cursed him for standing when he should be lying down.   
  
He made his way through the courtyard, asking which way Legolas had went. Finally, a golden-haired boy with cat eyes who was sharpening arrowheads in a patch of shade told him that Legolas had ran out into the grasslands. Aragorn went out into the wide plains, in the direction that he had been pointed, the direction that Legolas was last seen heading out. There was no sound. The plains were completely silent, save the lonely moan of the wind.  
  
Now there was a sound. At first he didn't know what it was. It came to him in a moment. It was whimpering. A muffled sobbing. The sound of a wounded animal.   
  
He had found Legolas, kneeling like a warrior wounded in the grass.   
  
Aragorn knew that Legolas was weeping. He could see the elf's shoulders shaking with it, in great wracking sobs. He had to resist an impulse to go to him, and the impulse was strong. But Aragorn knew that Legolas would not want him to know he was crying.  
  
He let Legolas cry, until the elf's sobs quieted. When they had, he walked forward, looking down at Legolas, an expression of sadness on his face.   
  
"Legolas..."  
  
Legolas choked back a sob and turned to him, face as perfect and smooth as a statue, and then it shivered apart again, making him a living, breathing, crying thing. Aragorn was reminded of an animal, cornered in a trap, yet unwilling to fight.  
  
"Aragorn." Legolas shook his head slightly, cleared his throat softly. He stood. He clenched his hands in a fidgeting, desperate kind of gesture, although whether it was a rub-off from being around so many humans or not, Aragorn didn't know. It wasn't an elvish trait, to stir and move restlessly.   
  
Legolas's emotions raged inside him, seeking an outlet and finding none. Legolas was ashamed of his tears, even though he had thought it strange why Eowyn was mortified by hers. There was a part of him that thought the Eldar were above tears, although he wouldn't have admitted this. He felt relief that Aragorn lived. But then he wondered what kind of morning they would wake to, whether they would all live to see the next dawn, and that thought brought him back around to a sickening dread. He felt ill, lost.   
  
Almost in a whisper, he continued, hearing the soft quake in his voice. "When I thought you had died...I thought it had all been in vain. Boromir...all of it. And I wanted to tell you..." He trailed off for a second, gathering himself, then, "...I wanted to tell you, I'm willing to die for you, Aragorn. To give up my immortality, like Arwen. I love you. Not because you're our hope. Because you're my brother. In more ways than my own brothers could be."  
  
Aragorn did not know what to say. He did not feel pity for Legolas, who had almost died of grief in his absence, only remorse, and terrible guilt. He looked and saw that Legolas would not look at him. He saw how much it hurt Legolas to admit to those feelings. The elf was often aloof, distant, as if he existed on a different plane than the rest of the Fellowship, as if he refused to get attached to them. Sometimes, he could seem almost mortal, kind and young, hot-headed (as an elf could be) and funny as hell in a wise, dry sort of way. Other times, he did something so alien, so *elvish*, that not even an idiot could ever mistake him for human. Once, Aragorn watched Legolas watch an orc die for more than two hours, studying its pain with a callous, almost innocent cruelty, listening to its shrieks.  
  
Such an offering of love, putting his heart in Aragorn's teeth, to carry or rend as he pleased. It must be truly hard for him to give, Aragorn thought.   
  
"Why, Legolas?"  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"It does matter. It matters to me," Aragorn replied, almost harshly, and Legolas winced as if struck. It hurt Aragorn to see it, but it didn't stop him. "Unless you want to turn back for Mirkwood now, before you get in any deeper. If you are, then I guess it doesn't matter. People will die when Saruman comes, Legolas. I wish I could keep that truth from you, but I think you know it well enough for yourself. It's not something I have to say. I could die, and so could you. All three of us could fall. And I don't want your protection, and I don't want your life for mine. I want you to worry about your own life first, do you understand? If you can't protect yourself before me, then go home. Look at me, Legolas."  
  
With a great effort, Legolas raised his head. Aragorn could see miserable fright in his eyes. Fear of what, Aragorn did not know, and he almost asked. But an elf could not admit to fear, not easily. Aragorn saw how Legolas had been standing at the edge of a blade, the edge between crippling grief and an immortal's valor, hidden like a steel hand in a velvet glove. He had been afraid for Aragorn's life, and on top of that, he was afraid for the Rohan, noble and without hope. Aragorn felt a warm rush of love for him. He seemed five centuries young, an elfling child, lost and afraid.   
  
His words were not a child's words. They were the words of a warrior. "I will not go home."   
  
He seemed to shake himself, blinking, and the fright was hidden again like a magic trick, as if Aragorn had never seen it. Hidden, but as if it had never been there. The only remnants of it were the drying tracks of tears on Legolas's face, sparkling with captured sunlight.   
  
"There is something, Aragorn. Something before we go to war. Something I would have from you." Legolas's voice was almost a whisper at this last, but not hesitant. He sank down to one knee.   
  
"Legolas, get up!" Aragorn felt a terrible storm of emotions as he saw the elf kneel at his feet, weaponless. He felt them roiling inside him. Legolas looked so young...so vulnerable, as if he was at his coronation, still a young elf under the age of a century. Aragorn's fingers trembled even inside their clenched fists. He had a terrible vision of Boromir, on his knees in the fell leaves. Boromir's words. // My brother, my captain, my king, // Aragorn thought, swallowing hard. "What do you think you're doing?!"   
  
"You know what I'm doing," Legolas replied, his face calm, though tears were still wet on his face. The wind blew forlornly across the grasslands around them, speaking in a thousand whispers.   
  
Aragorn shook his head, slowly. "Legolas, you don't have to do this."  
  
"I do, Aragorn." Legolas looked up at the Ranger. His blue eyes were as warm as a summer breeze. The moment for grief had passed. He was resolute. "Please. Many years ago, I named you Elf-friend. Now, you will do the same for me."  
  
"Legolas, you cannot do this."  
  
The elf's eyes were unmoving, unblinking as a hawk's, as still as blue marbles. There was no sign of that ecstatic mask there now. This was complete honesty embodied. This was undying loyalty. "Please...Aragorn," he repeated, his voice soft as heather.   
  
Aragorn sighed, looking down at him. "Legolas, the only fealty you owe is to your people."  
  
Legolas replied by remaining silently where he was. His stiff, formal poise said that he was prepared to genuflect all day, if that was what was required. Aragorn was saddened, for the prince of Mirkwood should give no such honor to anyone.  
  
Aragorn scowled, his voice jagged and tired and reluctant. "All right," he said, exasperated. "Dammit, Legolas, all right."   
  
He pulled Anduril from the scabbard slowly and laid the blade across Legolas's shoulder. Legolas closed his eyes. In a voice that was no longer exhausted or rough, but only clear and strong, Aragorn spoke into the day, although no one could hear but the earth and sky and the two of them. He spoke as a king.  
  
"Legolas Greenleaf, you are the best of yours and the best of ours," he said, looking down at the blonde elf. "You are the best of our best, the best that each of us could ever love or ever hope to be. So I pray for your rise, Prince of Mirkwood, and I embrace you well, because if you are not blessed, then our purpose is surely trivial and our future but a mournful ruin of hope. I bless our best, elvish friend of Gondor, and revere, because you bear the test of our valor to the Enemy. So wield fierce in Our name, in the name of Rohan, and in the name of your people."  
  
There was a beat of silence. Somewhere, a hawk cried in the stillness. Finally, Aragorn pulled the sword back and sheathed it, speaking again.   
  
"Are you satisfied?"   
  
"Yes," Legolas replied, smiling softly. He had his official place at Aragorn's side. He was no longer a member of Thranduil's elvish legions. He had earned a charge that was more than ally or a representative of Mirkwood in the Fellowship. His bow, while a weapon of Lothlorien, was now an instrument of the justice of Gondor. He carried Aragorn's command, and was, however irregularly, a member of the Gondor armies, and the loyal sworn servant of Aragorn, as well as his friend.   
  
Aragorn sighed. "Good."   
  
They smiled at each other for a moment-a good moment, Aragorn thought, like the one before they had gone off to pursue Pippin and Merry. That false cheer in Legolas's stance and poise and voice was gone. Ever since the beginning of the quest, there had been less easy moments between them. More sharp, serious words. There were silences that were cold, not between just the two of them, but like a chilled mist that encircled the hearts of all three of them, Gimli and Aragorn and Legolas, making small talk or jest seem petty.   
  
Legolas put his right arm across his chest and leaned forward in a graceful elvish bow of respect. Before, standing out on the cliffs, waiting for Aragorn's return, he had briefly considered leaving the Rohan. He considered fleeing to Forlindon, far to the west, beyond the hills and fields of Eriador and the Shire. He contemplated running to this place, where he could live out his years, and no one would know his name.   
  
As Aragorn returned the address and put a companionable hand on his shoulder, Legolas decided he didn't care if he ever saw the far valleys of Forlindon on the western coast. Or Valinor, for that matter. They walked back to the Deep in a comfortable silence.  
  
Those moments lasted forever in Legolas's memory as miraculous ones. Partly because they were miraculous, at least to him, and would forever be to him the end of his middle childhood, the end of any doubt he had ever had in Mankind, and his beginning as a warrior for Elessar, king of Gondor and Arnor. But they were partly miraculous because there would be no such calm again for them in the bloody days that followed.   
  
In the days that followed, in the days of Helm's Deep, peace and mercy never made an appearance.   
  
But miracles did.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Woo! I actually finished a multi-chapter fic! *dances* And it's your reviews that prodded me into doing it, so I take no credit. (This was supposed to be a one or two-chapter shot, remember? lol) Man, didn't it grow into a monster of a fic, though? Anyway, write in with more suggestions for the Helm's Deep fic, title undecided, if you feel like it, 'cause I love to hear from you! 


	8. A Quick Update

Just a quick note:  
  
The sequel to this fic is out, for those who wanted it. It's called "But There Were Some Who Resisted", and it focuses mainly on Helm's Deep, before, during, and after. It's basically just a continuation of "Forever Waiting". So if you liked this one, go read that one. ^_^ And review, review, but of course. 


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